L’Étoile du Nord (1982) - film review

Edouard Binet has spent the last few years travelling in North Africa.  On his return to France by steamboat, he meets a young dancer, Sylvie Baron, whom he introduces to a wealthy businessman, Nemrod Loktoum.  In Belgium, Sylvie returns to her hometown of Charleroi.  Her lover, Nemrod, has been murdered, on the train from Paris, and she suspects Edouard of being the killer.  Edouard denies this, even though his clothes are stained with blood and his pockets are stuffed with high denomination banknotes.  Rejected by Sylvie, Edouard takes refuge in a guesthouse owned by her mother.  The old Madame Baron is easily won over by Edouard’s charm and exotic tales of Egypt.  Only later does she realise that she may be harbouring a dangerous psychopath…

Pierre Granier-Deferre directs this unusual mix of melodrama and psychological thriller, his fourth adaptation of a work by the great Belgian crime novelist Georges Simenon.  Whilst the film manages to capture the unsettling mood of the Simenon novel rather well, it feels badly constructed, particularly in its first half, with the narrative cutting haphazardly between Egypt, Belgium and France.  The second half of the film is the most compelling, thanks to some forceful acting from Simone Signoret and Philippe Noiret, two of French cinema’s greatest performers.  This was to be Signoret’s final film appearance before her death from cancer in 1985.  The film won two Césars in 1983, one for the best screenplay, the other for the best supporting actress (Fanny Cottençon).

© James Travers 2007

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